Police protect wounded skinheads. Photo courtesy FOX news

At least ten people were wounded, two with life-threatening wounds, during a neo-Nazi rally in front of the state capitol building in Sacramento, California Sunday.

A white nationalist group called the Traditionalist Worker Party and a neo-Nazi group calling themselves the Golden State Skinheads assembled just before noon local time for the march they planned to make across the capitol grounds, but were met by counter-protestors carrying anti-Nazi signs.

Fights broke out before the planned march began and lasted for about 20 minutes despite a heavy police presence, including officers on horseback. Armed battles were conducted with knives and baseball bats leaving at least seven stabbing victims, two of them in grave condition, and a total of 9 hospitalizations. One of the neo-Nazis was allegedly stabbed in a major artery and might not survive.

California Highway Patrol officer George Granada said about 30 members of the Traditionalist Worker Party were gathering for a rally around noon Sunday when they were met by about 400 counter-protesters and a fight broke out, FOX news reported.

As people tried to leave the area, smaller fights broke out, Granada said.

Authorities were investigating what happened, but no arrests were made.

The injuries were the result of what the Sacramento Fire Department described as a “mass casualty event.”

“It was quite a bit of a melee,” SFD public information officer Chris Harvey told the LA Times.
For most of the afternoon police forced staffers and tourists in the historic Capitol building to stay inside.

The stabbings in the tranquil capital city Sacramento located in northern California come several months after another violent confrontation between members of a Ku Klux Klan group and counter-protesters at an Anaheim park in southern California.